How to protect your GitHub account while you are alive
GitHub lets the account holder name, in advance, who may act on the account after a death, through Successor settings. While the account holder is alive, GitHub allows transferring the account.
GitHub decides requests about a GitHub account after a death case by case, so nothing in its terms promises a survivor anything; what the account holder sets up in advance is what holds. GitHub lets the account holder name, in advance, who may act on the account after a death, through Successor settings. While the account holder is alive, GitHub allows transferring the account.
How to protect your GitHub accounts
Naming who acts after a death
- Successor settings
Successor settings lets a member name another GitHub user, account-wide, who after the member's death can archive the public repositories or transfer them to their own account or to an organization. The invited user shows as pending until they accept.1, 2
What GitHub, Inc. (Microsoft)'s terms say about sharing and transfers3
- Workspace roles and admin access
GitHub recommends that every organization keep at least two owners at all times, so the organization can still be administered if one owner dies.3
Organization owners have complete administrative access, billing managers can manage payment but not repositories, and members have default non-admin access.3
- Authorized users and delegates
Repository-level roles (Read, Triage, Write, Maintain and Admin) give collaborators granular access during the holder's life.3
- Expiry and activity requirements
Codespaces are deleted after 30 days of inactivity by default, and the retention period is fixed when a codespace is created.4
Should you save your passwords for your family?
Some people store account passwords so a family member can sign in later. The practice has three practical limits:
- Two-factor authentication often blocks it. Most accounts require a second factor — a code sent to a phone, an authenticator app, a passkey, or a physical key. A saved password alone frequently does not grant access, and the recovery codes that would are easy to lose or let go stale.
- It usually conflicts with the platform's terms. Most operators prohibit account sharing and signing in as another person, including after a death. Stored credentials are not the operator's recognized access path, and using them can violate the terms of service.
- Operators provide other paths. Where an operator offers a designation tool — Apple's Legacy Contact, Google's Inactive Account Manager, a beneficiary designation — that mechanism grants access the operator recognizes. A password manager's own emergency-access or legacy feature passes credentials through a controlled process. Digital assets named in a will or trust give a fiduciary authority under each state's Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA).
Sources
Data sourced from GitHub, Inc. (Microsoft) primary sources (10 pages reviewed). How we research.
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